


Madness and Puzzle Piece

by filia_noctis



Category: Coraline (2009)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Bisexual Female Character, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Future Fic, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-19
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-07 14:48:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5460320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/filia_noctis/pseuds/filia_noctis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coraline has started college, and is all grown up, or so she (and everyone) thinks. Except now there is a terrifying, recurring nightmare on top of the pop quizzes, presentations, and her parents' increasing fights, and before she knows it, she has to realize that she has to grow up some more, and very fast, if she really wants to put her childhood safely behind her.<br/>OR<br/>Homecomings are painful affairs. Sometimes they involve sentient needles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Madness and Puzzle Piece

**Author's Note:**

  * For [girl_called_sun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/girl_called_sun/gifts).



> Happy holidays! I hope you like it. :)
> 
> toujours_nigel beta-ed this graciously and forbore from murdering me after the 79th "Does this work? Yes, but does this work?!". So, um. Thank you. Bless you. <3

There was a well. It was easy to miss while walking. Yet people always managed to walk around it. At its bottom lay a key, a slightly ornate and old key with a long stem. It looked like a hundred others littered around forgotten locks in curio shops and antique auction houses, but it was quite unique.

* * *

 

 

The dreams begin in mid-September. _Great_ , she thinks, her mind has managed to morph homesickness into a whole new level. She bangs doors with a bit more force the first week, grows pensive over the second. By the third week she wants Wybie to be home already over his planned weekend break so she can grill him for details. Changes. She pretends it is cold feet over the unthinkable reality of _college_ work, and a particularly bad case of PMS.

* * *

 

 

 The earth around it churns. Dirt streaked machines with toothy mouths run by slovenly men with their raincoats askew play with mud around it for a couple of days. Eventually, after it has held its breath for what feels like one long, dank moment, they start pawing it in mouthfuls of old brick and empty slush. The sleet makes it easier, murkier. The raincoats stick like oily, slimy second skins, the coffee is cheap and the men are perpetually an inch away from exhaustion. Nobody notices the bit of metal poking out of the slush.

* * *

 

 

“So, what d’ya think?,” she scowls peremptorily over the phone at one of the fratboys inching towards her with a beer. Honestly, could keg parties be more _boring_?

“Jonesey, given the acute paranoia you are displaying, I am a precious millisecond away from buying a freakin’ Ouija board for Cat. Which will be a strange experiment in feline spirituality, granted, but I’m not sure I will be allowed to show the proceeds for a term paper. Look, are you _sure_ this isn’t retroactive grieving?”

“Do you think it’s all in my head?”

The older Coraline knows how to go deadly quiet. She has seen it in her mother(s) and shown it since puberty with some acumen. It is nicely dangerous-looking and useful.

“N-no!” She can practically feel Wybie’s eyes darting every-which way like a ferret’s and smirks quietly. The senior tries catching her eyes and gives her a cocky grin. _Some_ people, she swears.

“Look, Jonesey. I will tell you what I know the moment there is anything to tell. But you are half a state away from, well, everything. The only crap you can get into, even in the exciting sands of Nevada, is drowning in your own puke at a frat party. Jus’ don’t make it _this_ party, ‘kay? I’m on it.”

She knows he will, if only out of mortal terror and concern. Being adults wasn’t much help for people last time. She sighs and hangs up after distracting him by asking about the new set of chem lab stuff he has been blowing up.

* * *

 

 

 Nobody knows how the key managed to get inside a drainpipe. When it did, it merely scuttled around till it found a particularly rusty niche and perched. The whispering slush of water drowned the frantic hinging and unhinging of needles behind it, following in its wake, twitching and flitting to form a shape once more. It won’t be long now, it thought.

* * *

 

 

 She manages to get herself used to the nightmares. If her nails sometimes break on the bedpost, that is merely incidental. Most of them are still chewed raw while writing essays and planning presentations. She manages to slip into a routine eighteen-hour-day to deaden herself. And there are enough things to fill her in-tray, she thinks. She writes one paper on Batman and American masculinity, answers two pop quizzes on behavioral psychology, makes part of one short film on the Blue Ribbon Project, rallies in front of the cafeteria, throws old lady knickers and pantyhose at two other protests; and dates two jerks, one bitch in succession and gnashes her teeth when she hears the word ‘love’ till she meets a nice soft-spoken techie from the video game groupies. She manages to rescue her roommate from a dead-end roofie party, rescues a mangled dog from the backwaters of the campus rockery, and joins one new book club. She keeps telling her mum how everything is neat, and carefully avoids asking how her dad is. She boasts of how she manages to watch films like a riddle, in piecemeal over multiple shows, sometimes over a few days, when she works her hours as a movie usher. She never tells anyone of how she blinks for hours afterwards and keeps catching at neon stars at the end of her eyes. She gives up on Ramen surprisingly fast, to shift to a diet of beer, eggs, yoghurt and fags. She doesn’t forget her multivitamins, teasing girlfriends be damned. If she has a nervous tic at the twitch of her mouth, nobody notices it enough.

Somewhere down in September, she decides, the nightmares take up the least important part of her brain. They are only separation anxiety.

* * *

 

 

 When the time came, the key found the right part of the pipe, and started rattling. It could smell tea stewing and hear butter scraped on toast, so it knew it had hit home. It scraped, clawed, banged itself against the pipe, till it found a nice, strong rattle. The fact of the needled palm closed around its throat helped, of course.

* * *

 

 

Both Andie and Dawn invite her over for Thanksgiving, one tactfully hopeful and concerned about her parents’ fighting, the other just brash and demanding she meet her entire extended family, especially the cousin from Louisiana who swears on Malcolm X because they are sure to hit it off and orchestrating love matches is the sure shot way of making her _real_ family, won’t she please? And she declines both, repeatedly, saying how she wants to spend her first Thanksgiving away from home _at_ home, in case this was the last with both the parents. She is alternately eager and desolate as she packs her duffel, buys her parents souvenir t-shirts, a new snow globe for her mum, a print of the Nevada desert for her dad, fake casino chips for Wybie, hologram candies for the neighbours, fussing and re-examining them again and again, and shifting from calling them neat to freaking out about how cheap and useless the gewgaws are, and she _knew_ she should have had a plan, another job, a rich boyfriend, till she collapses the night before and Andie, Cecil, Dawn and Bess take turns to let her cry and blow her nose on them while they stuff her up with shawarmas, soda, and pot, while trading bad Thanksgiving stories. Her parents surely can't be _that_ bad.

Later, just before boarding, Andie sneaks up on her with a big hug, a brown paper bag of mushy sandwiches, and a lumpy package she is absolutely _not_ to open until they have crossed state borders. She cheats, of course, and is oddly touched to find the tiny figurines of Buffy ( _how?_!) and Black Widow from the comic con she couldn’t attend because of work, and, well, you know, general poverty. She smiles and sniffs away at a jubilant Bess over the phone while they pull out of Reno with Bess screaming, “SEE! I _told_ you!” till she is sure the entire bus has heard and hates her for her Thanksgiving treasures.

Her time on the Grayhound is oddly soothing. The sandwiches have too much mayo, and she is hell awkward on the phone with Andie later, but these are _good_ things. She hates the lurches and the occasional whiffs of gasoline. Once, she scrunches her nose and promises herself coffee. Afterwards, she just focuses on the old cabbage smell coming off the lady next to her. But mostly, she _tries_ reading the excerpts from _Homo Sacer_ she has been assigned without processing a word, watches the countryside, and dozes off to Pink Floyd.

* * *

 

 

 “The kitchen’s _freezing_! Will you please check the boiler, hon?”

“You mean, _after_ I’ve done the groceries? Gee, Charlie, you sure know how to treat a woman well! I’ve been _telling_ you about the rattle in the pipes, haven’t I? You think it’s easier to sit and work here?!”

“The hell is that supposed to mean? I raked the yard, didn’t I?!”...The clickety-clackety of one set of shoes recedes, while the heavier voice keeps talking, then mumbling, and then sighs. The key can hear the defeat in each slap of the monkey slipper as it potters around the room, near the whistling...kettle?

The key relaxes. Then, for good measure, it adds another bout of a merry jingle against the metal.

“What the...?”

Now it can hear somebody’s knees right above it, the sound of steel on rusty iron, a swear word, some grating, another exclamation, and a frantic hurtling of things above it, while someone screams for the phonebook.

The needles at its neck stroke it some. It continues shivering against the pipe, madly.

* * *

 

 

 She wakes up suddenly, her eyeballs feel bruised, her throat gummy and dry, the nerve at her temple aching from when she banged her head accidentally against the window. There is a crick in her neck from her really awkward slouching; her left arm awakens with a truly horrifying spurt of pins and needles. But that isn’t quite it, she thinks. There is sweat cooling off at the base of her spine, her stomach feels like a thousand cartwheels, and her head is...not headachey, no, but bursting with a thousand pricks of muddled images in flash purples and greens. It is hot to the touch of her clammy palms. Something whispers her name, she thinks, and the whisper feels horribly familiar and sharp. She can nearly feel her ear twitching. But a hundred things can whisper to a disoriented brain, and often do, she reasons. She is not going to pitch a fit here like the bus is on fire. She sucks in a breath, trying not to focus on the sudden hammering of her heart, and risks a half-opened eye again. The twilight sits heavily inside the bus, the colours dulled, the snoring soft. A blue-black silhouette looms closer and touches her shoulder. Rank breath on her hair and mouth.

“Your stop in five, hon. D’you have a raincoat?” The voice is raspy from too many cigarettes.

“It’s pouring, isn’t it?” She sounds scratchy. She straightens herself to realise they have just crossed town limits. One part of what she thought was snoring is the water drumming against the panes. The figure is already gone.

She stumbles out of the bus with her duffle, shivering. The good thing is the rain has washed away the stench of eternal pee from the waiting area of the bus station. The bad thing is the outside is a muddy soup, and her phone isn’t taking the rains well.

“Coraline!” She turns and blinks. It is strange to realise how rusty she already is about recognising the bundled up shapes of her mother and...Wybie. Of course.

“Hey Mum!” She gets a quick hug, a whiff of her mum’s familiar perfume despite the layers of wet _everything._ She loves it.

“Hey Wybie! Ewwwwwww! What rotted on you?!”

Wybie actually looks sheepish. “I started wearing this after my lab coat singed. The attendant thought that is just good sense.”

She laughs. This, she thinks, is why I am back here. _This_. Her mother looks the same, and will roll her eyes if she says her so (“Honestly. It’s been barely two months, what did you _expect_?”). She looks a little bit more exhausted though, and Coraline worries her mouth over it and decides to talk later. Tact isn’t one of her gifts, she knows. Wybie is all wet oilskin and eyes, and the glasses will never stop him from being called dork Potter if Coraline has her way with things.

“You are so not carrying a raincoat, are you?” her mother sighs and takes out, what she recognises to be the black spangled raincoat that was Miss Forcible’s graduation present.

“I am coming from _Nevada_ , mum!,” she protests, “And _that_ has glitter on it.”

 Oh, but she _missed_ her mother’s slightly irate, raised eyebrow. Wybie flashes a phone camera at her face the moment she is done (smirking, and) grimacing into the thing (pink glitter on a raincoat. _Seriously_.)

“And _that_ is going on your dorm bulletin board!” he chimes.

She scowls at him while balancing her duffel on one shoulder, and looping her other arm through her mother’s. She can feel her mother relax a bit more while still holding herself stiff, and grins. The ride home is sarcastic banter and showing off of the right order.

* * *

 

 

 It hears a lot of abuse words over the next half hour as the monkey slippers slap around the kitchen floor. Then the vent starts rattling, slowly at first, and then in earnest, and the rust starts to give away, flake by flake. It thinks the man wrestling with the vent has a nice voice, even when he is asking the vent to go to hell. The vent doesn’t go to hell. It just sits there in its own crud. Eventually, the man breaks a kitchen knife, a screwdriver, and bends half a wrench before the key can taste the sour, gritty flakes of rust raining on it. Tastes bloody, it thinks. It is pretty sure the needles lap it up. Sanguinary rust and freedom come with a bellowing noise. It is held up, cursed at, shaken, and left abandoned near the pile of clutter in a half-opened drawer. It nestles among other keys, forgotten buttons, leaky biros, scraps of paper. It watches one of the needles disentangle from the rusty, leaden, ornate design the hand has morphed into around its head, and slip inside the man-with-the-nice-voice’s sleeve. The man probably thinks it’s a bug or a spider when he grimaces a second later and tries swatting at it from over the fabric. From Rust to Real Blood. The hand around it stinks now of rust, and salt, and steel. The key holds its breath. The needles keep stroking it.

* * *

 

 

The house looms big and beckoning—a blue-grey monster in the wet dark. They stumble inside. She is giddy at the thought of stepping over the creak in the third step, smelling the musty mildew from the roof, fingering the doorknob. It feels strange to traipse on the porch, like she never left, while also making a stranger of her: like she has never been here before. The old bits of knowledge are new and abrasive. She turns to ask her Mom about dinner and promptly passes out.

They say she is only out for a couple of seconds. She comes around to her Mom peering at her, her frown humongous, and Wybie doubled over the duffel that pummelled him when she let go.

“Honestly Coraline, when did you last _eat_?”

She can’t say, she mumbles something indistinctly about a rank smell. That must have been it, really. Her Dad is in the hallway now, patting her and talking of making grand entrances. She grins back, unsure. This is awkward, true. But it seems to be a surefire distraction from the awkwardness of returning to the home where her parents now use different bedrooms. Later, divested of the godawful raincoat and bundled in a blanket, munching cookies and drinking juice straight from the carton, she thinks over what happened. Giddiness and over-excitement? Nervous tension? Stage fright? Doesn’t sound like her. May be old age mellows one. She scoffs, wrecking vengeance on the poor, innocent cookies. This will never do. She can’t get the smell out of her head.

The dizziness passes soon enough, anyway. Nearly.

Dinner is...difficult.

She is absurdly touched by the fact that her mother rushed the last bit of the catalogue to take the weekend off (A Coraline in tenth grade would never have believed that possible). She chokes when she sees the toilet paper welcome sign over the kitchen table her father grimaces over. She grins at her mother scoffing about her choice of clothing (“It’s _November_ , Coraline, that is too thin for any winter!”). She is piteously touched about the welcome home meal that is mostly an array of takeout boxes in the Jones household, and polishes off two extralicious burgers and half a bucket of fried chicken to her mother tut-tutting about starving herself, and her father teasing her about letting Wybie have _some_ of the chicken, please. She doesn’t talk much, initially, just eats, but is oddly grateful for Wybie’s presence at the other side of the table. She knows Beth would probably get a real banner and Andie’s parents have a barbecue. But this is lovely, and perfect, and as long as there is Wybie sitting there comparing her to the Sessame Street Grouch nothing bad can happen, no fight can escalate to _really_ loud voices, or the onetime scare of police sirens. So she eventually tells him about how she’d rather be the Cookie Monster, thank you, and tells her Mom about the last assignment and how psychology is really neat, what does she think of that major? And then her mother talks of guidance counselling while Wybie argues that forensics is way cooler, and the tiny halo of yellow light around the kitchen table is Coraline’s personal happy-place-snow-globe except. Except Dad has been awfully quiet after the first few laughs, has hardly taken a bite, and is on his sixth drink. Coraline has been embarrassed enough—and worried enough—to avoid looking at him.

Not well enough though, because Mother notices her noticing, and sneers about how Charlie will probably not be able to spare any time this weekend, what a pity, given the state of his rather floundering piece of--, and Dad smashes the glass and asks for a break, and it goes downhill from there. The voices go louder—shriller for her Mom, gruffer for her Dad, and before long she and Wybie are listening to how half the stuff he has published has been _her_ ghost-writing, and the skank he was caught kissing in that party, and the one time she had nearly packed to leave and stopped only because their joint catalogue got accepted: does she think he doesn’t _know_? Coraline sighs after five minutes and quietly excuses herself, eyeing Wybie as her chair scrapes back. Dad looks stricken and drawn, and tries apologising but Mother retorts back, and they are at it again. Wybie dutifully follows her to the porch. The sky has cleared after the spill. The stars stand out and shiver. Coraline clutches the blanket around herself a bit tighter. The cold is sudden, and tramples around her frayed nerves in a quiet, humming migraine, just around her temples, at the edge of her eyes, in the twitch of her nose, just about.

“Gee, and here I thought we’d bore you to death,” she mutters. She can feel Wybie haunch.

“Well. You know...parents.”

That is a lame thing to say. She turns to tell him it is a lame thing to say.

“You okay, Jonesey? The swooning spell-thing is new.” The abrupt sobriety in Wybie’s voice and eyes feels stupid. Wybie isn’t supposed to look serious. Never at her. He is ridiculous and dork Potter, and gross in the sickening thing he calls humor. Coraline nearly feels betrayed. Worse, she feels slapped. She sighs.

“It _is_ new. Brand new. I had nothing for hours, and before that sandwiches with _way_ too much mayo, and the gasoline smelled funky—“

“And the house smelled bad.”

She looks sharply at him. His eyes look huge.

“You smelled it too?”

He stares at her some more, then shrugs. “Nope. Not really. But you crinkled your nose and kinda... slumped over, y’know? How bad was it? The smell, I mean.”

“I don’t know. Pretty bad. But it was gone in a second.” She narrows her eyes. “Do you think it means something?”

He looks behind. Coraline is tempted to look around, but doesn’t. The hair at the back of her neck stands. 

“Honestly? Hard to say. You still dreaming?”

“Yeah. The same ones. Sometimes mixed up. Sometimes not. The same stuff over and over till my eyeballs start boiling. It sure feels that way.”

She rubs at them.

“Jonesey, what if it’s bad? I toldja about the well. It’s all a giant hollow now. New construction. What if—“

“I dunno, do I?!” She scowls, squinting at the dark. “I have no clue. It felt unreal sometimes, you know? I have _lived_ here for _eight years_ after that. This is my _home_. But, Wybie, the dreams.” She doesn’t know how to talk about them, really. Not properly. She has been telling him they are bad, but putting them to words is difficult. Doing that makes them real, somehow. She knows the moment she utters them, there is no going back, they are no longer just in her head, they have leaked out into the domain of the real, the tangible. She hugs her knees.

Wybie follows suit. “D’ya wanna camp at my place? Or, you know, pitch a fit over their quarreling, go back. Call Andie. ‘Sounded decent enough. Go meet the in-laws.”

She knows what he really wants to say. _Don’t stay in this house. It doesn’t look safe. We had even less warning the last time._

Coraline rolls her eyes at the last. “Nah. Let’s see this through. Feels weird not to. How long can I stay away? What if she hurts them again and I’m not around? What if it _is_ all in my head? What if—Besides,” she adds, scowling, “It’s only been a month with Andie.”

“You gross me out, Jonesey. All that moon-eyed crap.” The disgust is reassuring. She grins.

“Go on, Darth Vader. Like I don’t remember your gingertop. How _did_ that new age poetry thing work for you?”

“No, you don’t.” Wybie is pink, but not pink enough. “Honestly, Cor. What do we do?”

The grin fades. She sighs. “I... don’t know. Mom needs me, you know? Looks like the last few months have been _extra_ bad... and... and...” She huffs suddenly, impatient, stubborn. “I don’t want to run away from my home.”

“Okay. Cut me a deal? Help me get supplies for Mechanics one oh one tomorrow? Maybe we will figure out something. And, what will you do now?”

“Give you my dream journal? Climb a tree and look for Cat? Get you to troll me forever? I dunno. I think I should go to bed.”

“Won’t say no to the dream journal.” Wybie gets up with her. “Is it filthy?”

She cocks him an old-time grin. “You wish, Dorkiness.”

“No kidding.”

She sighs and takes out a couple scraps of paper from her back pocket. “Knew you’d ask. I tried writing as clearly as I could, okay? But. There wasn’t much to write beyond a point. The same stuff kept happening. Don’t judge me too hard. And wait a minute. I got you stuff.”

The house feels darker. The suggestion of the smell lingers in the air. Coraline is suddenly terrified at the thought of opening the door, entering the house, spending the night in. She violently wants to pack her parents up and leave: go to the nearest motel, go back to Reno, just... not be here. She looks blankly at the door. She wants to move. Her feet feel heavy. She shakes herself like a bull terrier and huffs. Home. Eight years. Lived space. Right. She can feel Wybie watching, she doesn’t turn back to him. The march forward would be impressive had it not been for the stumbling. _Again._ The dizziness is real. The smell isn’t her brain being overexcited and extra-imaginative. The shudder threatens to buckle her knees. If anyone asks her what dread feels like, she decides she’ll say, “Nauseating.”

There is thunderous silence in the hallway. She manages to reach the empty kitchen, dig out the lopsided package, stumble out. She is breathing heavily. Beads of perspiration chill her bones once she is out again.

Stairs. Floorboards. Creaks. Wind. Wind howling in her ears. Ringing in her ears. Slightly blurry porch. Her clothes feel stuffy. Her palms sweat. She swerves. This is nothing like a bad trip with vodka. This is... This is...This.

She can’t hear herself mumble to Wybie. She crumples at the stairs, and drags herself to the nearest post to bend over and breathe. Slowly, things begin to stop swimming around her eyes. She raises her face to the cold.

“Awww, Jonesey. This looks bad. This looks really, _really_ bad.” She thinks she can feel Wybie shifting his weight from one foot to the other, hovering.

“May be it’s your tap dance.” She squirms. _Not_ retching takes a lot of effort, apparently.

“Honestly. _Twice_? In the exact same way? You were fine just now, weren’t you? Doesn’t feel normal, does it?”

“No.” She has to admit, “It doesn’t. Hey, does the offer for a sleepover really stand?”

“Say the word.” Wybie could make a good soldier, she thinks, her mind drifting. So... adaptable.

“Fetch my bag?” The thought of being alone on the porch feels like ice flowing down her spine. _Stupid._

When he’s back, they slowly trudge along towards his place, him carrying the bag for the gallant twat he is. He also offers to support her weight, but even her reputation and good fellow-feeling can’t hold down the snort. She pats him on the proffered arm though, and he falls in step with her, content and perfectly agreeably disagreeable.

The effort required to sound adequately pissed off over the phone to her parents is nearly beyond her, but not quite. Her father sounds broken, his vowels slurring. Her mother is laconic and stiffly understanding. She promises them she’ll be back for breakfast, and manages to be disgruntled and disappointed enough at them to not guilt herself overmuch for being such a coward and running away. “Thank you for making it extra special guys”, she mocks, just like her Mom, “I will _try_ to see you in the morning.”

“May be this is psychosomatic.” She argues later, over her peanut butter spoon. “May be I am freaking out about the impending disaster that is my parents’ divorce enough to trigger a physical response. May be this knowledge has been subconsciously repressed long enough under college work and dating, and... all that. There are instances of—“

“Or may be,” Wybie the Jerk intercedes, “The giant, mythic she-spider of yore is now at large, and trying to canoodle with your brain.”

* * *

 

 

The Lovat’s place smells of Mrs. Lovat’s vanilla sachets, mildewed, and mothballs. Wybie’s grandmother hugs her, and gives her nice, thick gumbo, and _doesn’t_ ask either of them about her parents. Her hands look fragile and spider-webbed now, but are cool to touch and comforting to hold. He gets her throw pillows and a truly obnoxious, possibly poisonous protein shake. She is disappointed when it doesn’t make her feel queasy. Something angry settles in the pit of her stomach at the thought of not being able to get past the threshold. _Her_ threshold. He gleams at her triumphantly, and the rage melts into a deep surge of affection for the best friend she has turned into found family. If she were more of a dope, she’d hug him.

Sprawling on Wybie’s couch under the giant patchwork quilt feels a lot like school, only better. Wybie’s snores filter through the door. She closes her eyes.

* * *

 

 

It is morning. She is back home, only _not_ queasy. That’s good, right? She doesn’t want to test her luck with the stairs yet, though it is strange to not see her room already. So she washes up in the sink downstairs, and heads for the kitchen. Something is discomfiting about the old place, but she can’t put her finger on it. Is she too groggy yet? And then she realises how the mirror next to the hallway and the one in front of the sink are both gone. Why? Did Dad —the kitchen feels a balmy egg-yolk yellow (wasn’t it misty outside? Did they light a fire? Change the bulbs? Do they _have_ a fireplace?). Father’s making breakfast. Mother is at the table going through what looks like a stack of bills. Mother also has a black eye. It feels obscene to watch and _wrong, wrong, wrong,_ but Coraline can’t look away.

“Coraline!”, her mother’s smile is strained but bright, which makes it worse, somehow. “Yes. Quite a looker, isn’t it? I slipped and knocked myself out. So silly, really.” Coraline can see her gingerly feeling around the horrible yellowing rim of the deep purple-blue-black patch.

“Where?!? Mom! Are you alright? Do you need a doctor? Is the eye watering?”

“Concerned, aren’t you?” Her father turns around with the cast-iron skillet. He has red-rimmed twitchy eyes and a nerve at his throbbing temple that Coraline now knows she has inherited. His eyes are shiny.

“Darling!” Her father is placing a breakfast plate in front of her, and neatly sliding the fried egg on it with an expert flick of the spatula. Charlie Jones is a clumsy man who spills soups and ketchup every time he sets the dinner. The omelette smells of cheese and the seasoning is half familiar...

Coraline stares at him. His eyes are shiny. Too shiny. The seasoning is too...

“Dad, are you on drugs? PCP? Did you take something funky?” She is aware that she is clutching the chair too strongly. She is aware that she is expected to sit, but hasn’t quite managed yet. She is suddenly aware of how her Dad’s eyes are dark pools.

Her mother gasps. Coraline doesn’t look at her.

“Do we have an expert?” her Father drawls, smiling, and flicks a finger at her Mother, who clamps her eyes shut immediately. “She bores me. All the shrillness. Women in between had better cadence.” Now his fingers are very lightly touching her mother’s hair. “And so boxy, dear lord! I _abhor_ the turtlenecks.”

She can see her mother sneaking a peek. Mother never does that, out of humor or fear. She can feel her palms fisted against the sides of her jeans. They are hurting her.

“Stop touching her!” She blurts.

“Careful.” Father trills. “If you don’t behave, I have to consider detention.” His hands fixate on the shape of Mother’s skull too much. Coraline finds herself watching it.

“Yes. So simple. Isn’t it? Just one twist. And lo! We have a homicide! Isn’t that what you kids call it nowadays? Is it the drunken husband?” There is an unnatural angle to his head when he thrusts out an arm and flails dramatically. “Or the deranged daughter?” He is now clutching his heart, like a soulful Othello. “Or,” he straightens up and the voice turns brisk. “You could have your breakfast like the dutifully appreciative daughter you are.”

Mother whimpers. Coraline still can’t look at her. The scraping of the chair feels alien. The eggs are cooling. The cheese is beautifully toasted. Her mother is breathing in short, shallow breaths. Her father is watching her intently.

She stabs a piece. “That must be a _reeeeally_ good trip.” She declares. _Play it cool, Coraline. No point getting him—or is it her?—worked up._

Father looks befuddled. “We are travelling?”

“Generation gap. Right.” She huffs. “The stuff you are on must be really good. Potent.”

Father leans forward an inch. Coraline grits her teeth and doesn’t lean back like she wants to.

“Think again, daughter.” The silky smoothness of the voice, so much more effective than a brawl. So much scarier than her Father’s rare bursts of deep throated scolding.

And then her Father raises an eyebrow and taps his eyes.

The fork clatters. Her Father grins. Her Mother looks up, startled.

“Oh.” Coralline says blankly. “That.”

 

She doesn’t know how long the moment stretches. Eventually, she looks away, picks the fork again, and stabs at the egg.

“This tastes good.” She says.

“Why thank you, darling” the nod is gracious, “You were always ever so appreciative of my cooking.”

“N-no.” Her Mother stutters. “Charlie, please. I think—I don’t. Doctor!”

Her Father turns around and slaps her casually, hard, near the ear, from behind. There is a sound. Her Mother’s head lolls.

“ _No_!” She doesn’t realise springing up from the chair.

“Careful darling.” Her father’s fingers are gentle in their exploration of her mother’s mouth, earlobe, temple. “She lives. If she were to die, what else shall we play with?! But she can be hurt, of course. She hurts _so_ easily.”

Coraline’s teeth are hurting her jaw. She stills, balls up her fists to stand still.

Her father looks at her, his head tilting. His voice is softer now, more intimate.

“Now that we can talk freely,” A shrug. “How _have_ you been? You look like a skeleton! They _so_ haven’t taken good care of you darling. And what _are_ these rags?” Some tutting, then a sigh. “You really should have stayed with me.” Another sigh. “Well. Better late than never.”

Coraline needs to cough to speak. She didn’t know her throat could parch up so. “How?” She croaks.

Her Father raises an eyebrow. “Wouldn’t you like to find out.”

Coraline tries shrugging. Doesn’t work. She needs to vocalise, she decides. About time. She grabs the glass of water from the table and chugs some. She worries for a second about being poisoned. She looks up.

“What now?” she says. Her voice is steadier. It’s not much, but she likes that.

The Other Mother grins. It sits wrong on Father’s face.

“You open the door.” She says simply. Coraline waits. The Other Mother watches her, and then continues. “We live together. Forever. Like we were meant to. We should never lose sight of each other again.”

She is about to retort—not very self-preserving, she knows—when—

Panic is a roiling serpent with fangs coiling around the pit of her stomach. Panic is books that cost too much or are too hard to read, but too vital. Panic is watching the hockey fratboys towering over her best friend and then herself. Panic is the sudden unwarranted, casually intimate touch of a stranger without permission.

Panic is the key her father’s fingers are wrapped around.

“Why? I mean,” She back-peddles. _Knowledge is our friend_. _Knowledge is_. “You are already here. What difference will it make?”

“Plenty.”

“I...We...I don’t want them to get hurt.”

“You always were such a ridiculously scrawny little white knight. Except when you got seduced by food.” The cackle isn’t... kind. “For the others I had to make rainbows they could touch, and silver rocking horses. Once, I made a ball that never stopped bouncing.” The Other Mother examines her nails. Coraline tries examining them too without squinting. Are they growing? Are the nails like daggers already? “With you though,” Coraline knows this is going to be cruel, and callously casual, like the slap. Like, probably, the black eye and the other bruises. “I only had to make roast chicken and some pretty clothes, and there you were, saying things like” The head tilts. The angle is unnatural. Father would have a creak for days. “ _My Other Mother would get them_!”

“Is my father dead?”

The Beldam considers the question. Or she just likes drawing it out. Eventually, she says “No. Not yet, anyway. He can be though. Very easily.”

Coraline swallows. “What must I do to save them?”

The Other Mother smiles like knives.

“You could” The hand is stretched out, ticking things off in mid-air. She swears the fingers are longer. “Open the door: both the doors, get inside and lock the doors and return the key to me, stay with me on the other side, and, once inside, darling? Button time.”

She has possessed her Father’s eyes, hasn’t she? It’s a button thing. _Think, Coraline, think_.

“I don’t see how all this saves them.”

“Oh, we—your father and I— put the two of them in your car _after_ you have entered the doorway.” That smile was never meant to look good. Or human, come to that.

That can’t be a foolproof plan. Or was it? She can’t think. She is too numb. She is too hungry. Her head hurts.

“If you stay with Father, how will you get back?”

“Oh darling! Most of me _is_ in there. Your father only has a tiny part of me, the merest keepsake. He can have that, or lose that. Depends on you, and my mood. Truth be told, my mood, really.”

“How do I know you won’t keep possessing him, or her, and hurting them?”

“You don’t.” The gaze is flat. The voice is bored. “If it is any consolation, the bit of me here has work to do after you have gone in.”

“What work?”

The Other Mother looks around. “I don’t like visiting here. I want to keep the door shut.”

“You can do that?”

“No. _You_ can. And you will.”

“I?”

“Yes. You will open the door, climb in the gateway, pass through the passage to the other side—the _better_ side”, she grins like a shark, “And torch the passage. Or else...”

“Or else?”

The Beldam rises, “How exactly do you prefer to see your parents die? Brute force? Strangulation? The old favourite—freezing to death? Your mother is irritating enough for me to snap her neck, as it is.” The head shifts again. “Don’t worry, as long as you are on the other side, the fire won’t touch you, or this house. It will merely,” The hungry grin is back, “sever the connection.”

“No good! That doesn’t promise me _any_ thing!”

“Sweetheart”, The Other Mother has a drunken slob’s gait, and comes towering over her, “I can leave them in your car, or I can snap their necks right now, or I can burn them when I burn the invisible part of the house. Your call.”

She decides she has had enough people towering over her to last her a lifetime: spooky spidery-impersonating monsters and drunk college athletes be damned. Her hands shoot out for the forks, and even before she thinks she may be has a plan, she is plunging them into her father’s eyes. It feels like squelching a grapefruit and horrible, and there’s blood, and, and, but her Father only laughs and then the Other Mother’s words come streaming out of his mouth, filling the room, filling her eyes, “ _Silly_ girl! What _will_ the neighbours say? Do you want to hear his screams now?”

She is petrified, and rigidly standing in the middle of their sunny kitchen, with half a fried egg on the table, next to her mother’s bruised head. And her father’s eyes have blood streaming out of them because she put cutlery through them. And her father is doubled over, laughing. And it didn’t help.

It didn’t help.

She feels hollowed out. _This is too big, I can’t fight it._

Her knees are buckling.

_We can’t run._

Her father looms closer again, she can smell the blood. “Not this way.” He whispers.

_And then the dream changes for the first time in months._

_He taps on her forehead. “Wake up and come home, sleepyhead. The night has been a riot.”_

* * *

 

 

The Pink Palace is roughly half a mile from Mrs. Lovat’s. She has run the distance in under five minutes after the first call for dinner. When lingered over, though, it may take half an hour. Mrs. Lovat almost never makes it before an hour.

The first thing Coraline hears even before she opens her eyes is the ticking of the ancient cuckoo clock. “Hiccup clock” Wybie and she called it. Clock ticking. Time. Time is... time was?! Her eyes are blurry. She thinks her heart has safely dropped in the pit of her stomach. But, apart from it hammering back up, slowly, she is alright. There is one thing to be said about repetition. It leads one into territories of strange habits. Her nightmare-recovery time is a record low.

She feels around for her phone. It’s 6 am. The outside is pretty dark. Her quilt feels like a sanctuary. She rings home, then changes her mind and disconnects too early. She rings her Mom. She is pulling on her shoes in what is beginning to look like panic when it finally! clicks into a “Mmngh?”

“Mom? Are you alright?”

“Coraline?” The sleep wraps around Mom’s voice like a purring cat. _Cats._ “You ’kay? Is anything wrong?” She sounds like she is waking up in jumps and starts. “Is there trouble? Are you out?”

“No! No Mom, I am under quilty goodness. Everything’s neat.” She cradles the phone. “Where’s Dad?”

“Not here. Do you want to talk to him? Hold on—” Her mother sounds disgruntled even through the yawn.

Coraline grimaces and tries holding the phone while tying her shoelaces when the phone feels whipped by the crackle of a thud. If there is a moan, it isn’t audible.

“Mom? _Mother?_ What’s happening?” There is soft, unperturbed breathing on the line. Coraline wants nothing better than sprinting down the lane, past the old garden, into the house. Someone else, apparently, wants the same. She bites her finger to not call out for Wybie or move towards the front door. _Not yet._

“It is rather tiresome to knock your mother around.”

“ _What_?”

“You will like the bruise. It is even better outside your head.”

“Father, is that—“

“When are you coming?” The voice is impatient and a tad bit whiny.

Coraline breathes deeply. “Soon,” she says.

* * *

 

 

“Police?”

“Dad will get arrested for things he didn’t do.”

“Only, they seem to have been done by his hands.”

“Exactly!”

“Beats dying, though.”

“Beats dying. What if he causes a prison riot? What if she can control him even outside the house?”

“Gun?”

“I don’t want my father dead, _idjit_!”

“No stabbing either?”

“Not really.”

“What if we isolate the infection and chop the bit of body out? Amputation beats dying.”

“Not that easy. Don’t know how to isolate anything.”

“What if we isolate the pathogen and chop _it_ up? We smashed her hand pretty good the last time!”

“Don’t know where the hand is. Dunno how it is controlling him. It _must_ be the hand, right? I mean...What else?”

“We could call him out and give him a thorough body check. The kind they do at prison?”

She huffs. They are too young to talk seriously about this, to _not_ sound like an elaborate hoax. So much for college.

“I don’t think he will leave the house. And the house is...well. _I_ am fainting like an old Victorian lady inside it. Who says you’ll do any better?”

“Yeah. But...but _dammit_ Jones! This is a freakin’ war! You _gotta_ have ammo!”

Coraline sighs. The clock is ticking. Has been, for the past forty minutes.

“It’s Dad, Wybie. Can’t hurt him, even if he talks like her. I don’t even know if knocking him out will work. If _she_ can be knocked out!”

“He _has_ already hurt your Mum, Cor. God knows how badly.”

“Not him.”

“Right. Okaaay then. Let’s shift from Mission Hannibal Lector-Mr. Jones to Mission Containment. The green stone thing from last time: any of those handy?”

“Nope. Broke the last one inside the door. They’re visiting their niece. Won’t meet them in time. Don’t know if they have another, at any rate. Even if they do, and we break in their appointment, it’s _in the house_. Too risky.”

“Try this.”

They didn’t notice Mrs. Lovat’s walking stick tap tap tapping down the stairs. Some conversation.

“Uh, sorry Mrs. Lovat. We really didn’t mean to disturb...”

“Grandma, we are just...”

“I grew up in the Pink Palace, honey. It’s stirring again, isn’t it?”

Coraline slumps. Adult intervention could not be better timed.

“Yes, I am afraid it is. Wait. How did you manage to escape her?”

“I didn’t. I just didn’t want to go in after the first time. Not like her. Not Lily.” The lines across Mrs Lovat’s face form a web of age Coraline can never imagine reaching herself, just as she cannot imagine being so fragile with grief.

“I did not like it. Told Lily I didn’t. She wouldn’t let go of it for the world! She said she had found the heaven for little children. That she had met her guardian angel. And,” A tear glistened at the edge of the crow’s feet, “It was ‘quite all right’ if I couldn’t appreciate heaven. She didn’t really want to share her guardian angel.”

Mrs. Lovat smiled sadly at them. “You see, we were much too religious compared to you children nowadays. She took it all very seriously.”

“What happened... later?”

“After she disappeared? I tried telling but nobody would believe me. They thought I was distraught with shock. I started dreaming. I was tired all day. I felt heavy around my eyes. I felt spied on. I wanted it to _stop._ I was eight.

“So I told my grandmother. She was visiting to help my mother cope with Lily’s disapp—loss.” If there is a tremor in the voice now, it is more than swallowed by a strange urgency. The words sound rusty, like she never shared them before.

“It worried her, I could see. One night, I showed her the door. It worked. I guess it wanted us too badly. But grandmamma wouldn’t risk going in. Wouldn’t risk another granddaughter or herself. Lily was too long gone.”

Coraline wants to rush back home. Coraline wants her mother out of the house. Coraline—knows this is important. She sits on her hands to listen further.

“She went through our play boxes. Weeded out a set of toys. The doll,” She looks at Coraline, nodding faintly at her hands, like she knows, “was _not_ among the ones she removed. She burnt my sister’s though. She said she couldn’t risk burning mine. She just put it away for good. She knew people from the bayou. The old people. The people who could guess what these things are, what names they have. What strange dolls mean. She looked desperately for the key. We nearly tore apart the house. Everyone thought we were playing, that she was distracting me while mother rested. Couldn’t find it. She went away for a while with my doll. She came back with a ring for me. This ring. She eventually bought this house, and quietly persuaded my parents to join her. Said there were too many memories in the old place. She knew my father wouldn’t believe. He was too much a Protestant. Everyone thought we were trying to get over losing Lily. She was scared for me, but, she didn’t know: I loved my sister, but nothing could make me enter that door again. Not even Lily. From the moment I had the ring on, I couldn’t see, anyway. All I saw was bricks. Eventually, that’s what I believed. I should have given you the ring when you came. By then, I had forgotten the magic and kept wearing it as a keepsake.”

The papery staccato of Mrs. Lovat’s voice had drowned the ticking of the clock. Coraline sat there quietly, staring at the ring. It was a plain metal ring, blackened and leaded. It lay on Mrs. Lovat’s palm like a small, grubby rubber band. It didn’t look particularly reassuring. Things generally were never this simple when one dealt with adults.

“It is made of horseshoe, meteor iron, or something similar. I don’t know what it means, or what she did to get it, but the dreams stopped.”

“But then you left!”, she blurts out, “You still had to leave!”

Mrs. Lovat nods. “We did. Just in case.”

Wybie is twitchy. “Is it voodoo? Does it have an expiry date? Does it need blood sacrifice?”

“I don’t know.” Mrs. Lovat smiles simply, “But I know this can help. Metal, especially iron”, she looks at Coraline, “Is magic. We have known and trusted it for ages. Magic, from the little I have seen of it, comes out of the patience of ordinary things, my dear. Don’t ignore them.”

“Like cooking is alchemy?” Coraline can tell Wybie is at the end of his tethers. He never mouths off to Mrs. Lovat if he can help it.

Grandma grins widely at both of them. “Precisely.”

“Ordinary things...” Coraline picks up the ring, it is smooth and cool to touch. She nearly pockets it when, on a second thought, she puts it on. Mrs. Lovat nods approvingly.

“Okay! So maybe this is an old piece of junk, or _maybe_ this is the good One Ring. Good for it.” Wybie swivels at Coraline, pointing an already nicotine-stained finger at her hand, “Too uncertain. Not ammo enough.”

Coraline nods. _Ordinary things..._

She stands up. “Look, I have to go back in there ASAP. Mom’s _alone_ and hurting in there. I... I am trying not to think too much about it. Thank you for the ring Mrs. Lovat. I am hoping it helps me, and Mom. But it won’t help save Dad or close the doorway for good.”

“You can’t keep hiding the key, love”, Mrs. Lovat sighs, “Things like that always find a way back.” She can hear Wybie mutter to himself LOTR cuss words. “The monster. She will always find ways, forge bridges to reach us. She only ever needs a willful human to open the gate.”

_Bridges. Burn the bridge. Burn._

Coraline strides over to Mrs. Lovat and gathers her up in the tightest, squeeziest hug she has ever given to anyone. She smiles back at her, slightly breathless and perplexed. They thank each other in tandem before Coraline asks for some milk and Mrs. Lovat disappears towards the kitchen, with the promise to be filled in when she is back.

“No waterworks, Jonesey. What was _that_ about?”

Coraline turns to Wybie, her eyes sharp and shiny like knives.

“The doorway is like a... a star gate, right? The passage that joins the two doors forms the portal?”

“I suppose.”

“Right. And this ring protects me from her... influence? If I wear this I won’t be woozy inside the house? Or dream? It, in fact, neutralises her in this world, right?”

“I _hope_ so. But, Cor, if your dream is real, she will probably _want_ you inside the house today.”

“I will find some way to test the theory before anything decisive.” Coraline shrugs to Wybie’s strangled “ _Test?_ ”

“What else? Besides, we already know—can guess, any way—she is acting through her hand. At least for now.”

“And your point is...?”

“Wybie!” He turns towards her, “Help?”

“Hell’s bells! Jonesey, are you dumb?”

Coraline grins.

 “We have to visit the laundry room, the garden, and the tool shed double quick, potions master. And we have ten minutes tops.”

* * *

 

 

She is panting slightly from the climb. She stares at the porch, another step, and she is technically inside the house. _In her domain. Again._ Coraline burps once from the hurried hot chocolate. The ring is heavy under the gloves, as is the carton in her hand, and the satchel on her back.

There now, she thinks. Yes, this house hasn’t looked at you like it wants to eat you in a very, _very_ long time. But this is _your_ territory. You know every creak in the steps, every bit of the peeling wallpaper, every touch and smell and breath of air this house can have, is yours. You are the explorer who conquered and held ground.

She huffs. The thought is warming. But it isn’t enough. She has been away—for a few months, true—but with promise to be away for good. All the gardening and mud cakes and scraped knees have been swallowed whole by one phone call, and here she stands, staring at the chipped, peeling white paint like it is a riddle mocking her for her audacity to think she _could._

“But I have, haven’t I?” She thinks, “I _have_ managed to put behind the first month for the _years_ since then.” For a single, terrible moment, she is tempted to turn back and leave. She has a ring that may help. As long as she doesn’t enter the house she doesn’t have to fear never leaving it. She wants to hitchhike across the continent, she wants to call her friends, she wants to grow old and crinkly like Mrs. Lovat, she could be _any_ thing she wanted to be, all she had to do was give up on her family. It was a terrible choice, but a choice nonetheless. The trouble was, it was an impossible choice, and everyone knew it _._

She shrugs. She has a plan. It has its loopholes, but. If the Other Mother has lived inside her brain for months, she has been the one to carry her in her head and still survive.

“Here’s to nothing, Ms. Potter,” she mutters, avoiding the familiar creak of the third step.

* * *

 

 

The house is quiet, quiet and bathed in an unreal, buttery yellow light. The fog from outside doesn’t seep in. She doesn’t feel giddy, or sick, or weak. She is lightheaded at the thought before she notices how the ring on her finger seems to be singing. She seems to live in a tiny stormy bubble of her own, the air around her thick and quarrelsome. She doesn’t waste any time.

First stop, living room. The room looks the same except. _Except._ The needled palm is crouching by the tiny door, with the key hanging from it. She decidedly _does not_ have an over-active imagination. That’s a relief. It scuttles when she enters; once she drops the carton on the floor, it takes the key out of the keyhole and scurries higher on the wall till it reaches the mantelpiece. She takes a step further to take a better look at it. It crouches, she nearly steps back when she realises it is not...crouching. It is shrinking back. She tests the theory. It holds. The hand is either too protective of the key, or it most definitely doesn’t want to be touched by her. _Especially_ by her ringed hand. She notices the one needle missing from its index finger. She can perhaps guess how her Father is now a hell beastie. She steps back and flashes out her torchlight twice at the window to her right, and the last window to her left. Her phone beeps once. Wybie now knows the Other Mother means business, and that the ring is somewhat effective, as far as she can tell. Game on.

She bends and slashes at the scotch tape of the wobbling carton in one fluid movement, steps out of the door, and shuts it quickly before the cats scramble out of the carton. The hand won’t like that. She breathes in deeply. _Just in case_.

The kitchen feels a balmy egg yolk-yellow (wasn’t it misty outside? Did they light a fire? Change the bulbs? Do they _have_ a fireplace?). Father’s making breakfast. Mother is at the table, blearily going through what looks like a stack of bills. Mother also has a black eye. It feels obscene to watch and _wrong, wrong, wrong,_ but Coraline can’t look away.

“Coraline!”, her mother’s smile is strained but bright, which makes it worse, somehow. “Yes. Quite a looker, isn’t it? I slipped and knocked—”

“Mom, get up. You need a doctor.” Coraline strides in and angles herself in between her parents and tugs at her Mom’s arm. She flinches, and yawns. Her head lolls again. That's when Coraline is quite sure there are other bruises. She bites back her rage and asks, offhandedly, “Is she drugged?”

Her Father is slouching against the counter watching her. He has been watching her since she entered the room.

“No,” he replies, amused. “Just hurting.”

“ _Mom!”_ Coraline picks up the glass of water from the table and splashes her mother with it. She can feel her flinch. She’d be sorry, except that there is no time.

“May I ask what you are doing?” The voice is decorous, polite.

Coraline turns towards her Father.

“I know this isn’t in the script, but I don’t feel like acting out a Norman Rockwell painting. Can you help her up?”

“And why exactly will I do that?” The Other Mother drawls softly.

Coraline pretends the goosebumps up her spine are only chilblains.

“To keep your part of the deal.” She is proud of not sounding shaky. She continues briskly, “I have a friend waiting outside for my parents to appear. If they don’t within the next ten minutes, he will call the cops and raise a ruckus. My Dad is no good to you in a police station, especially if he is framed for domestic abuse.”

“There are ways around that.” The voice is meditative, but the glance is irate. Coraline ploughs on, knowing it to be just that tad bit impatient.

“Eventually? Yes. But I will be long gone, and you wouldn’t get your revenge, only a roomful of cat. Besides, you could possess people, but they can’t open the door for you when possessed, can they? You’d have made my Father open it long back if you could.” The statement is really a challenge, but she takes the bait.

“A seeking mortal. Yes. Not one half-sullied by demon.”

Coraline can’t quite hold back the shudder this time. Childhood monsters manifest tenfold in grown up resignations.

“My guess is, once I leave, it will be ages—if at all—before you find anyone seeking what’s behind the door. Even if you possess people back into the house.”

“It isn’t impossible, but I grant you, it will cause elaborate deliberations and undue delay.” The Other Mother nods like a pious dowager. “What do you propose?”

“You let my parents go. Let them walk out of this house as themselves, let them leave with my friend. I promise to stay.”

“Quite a beauty for the beast!” Her father’s gleam is nearly lecherous, and that wounds more than everything else, everything violated so far. He continues looking at her curiously, _hungrily_.

“Well?” Coraline’s impatience isn’t feigned.

“The protection you wear beneath the leather,” Only an eyebrow twitches at Coraline’s muted surprise—she had long resigned herself to the amulet being found out immediately or not till too late. Trust the Beldam to show her cards at her leisure. “It is effective, no doubt. But it can’t last. As long as even a fragment of me resides in this world, I can play. If not you, your roommate, your neighbour, your friend, or lover. In time, your children.” It smacks its lips. “One day, you will lose the protection. One day, I will hurt you through someone you hold dear. Someone you trust will steal it for me. What then? I could reach for you across a thousand miles, couldn’t I? And you were so _sure_ you were teetering into insanity. I only had a few weeks. Think of how much _fun_ it will be to turn you lonelier, crazier, in a matter of _days_ , till you have no one and no one has you. You can’t resist. You _will_ give in. You know you will, already. You let lose the monster in the nursery, child. And then you found a cage that couldn’t hold. What kind of a life _do_ you think you will have?”

Coraline’s mouth is very, _very_ dry. Her ears are ringing, her head is full of cotton wool and marshmallows. She shakes herself out of it like a bull terrier. This’ll never do. “God! Is there a monster school they teach you that? Hypnotize people with threats?” The Other Mother stiffens up. She can feel the attack building and cuts in sharply.

“Look! I know what you mean. And, well...good point! I nearly went mad out there and ignoring it didn’t help. I _know_! Which is why there are no tricks, not this time. I don’t want to hurt my Father. I don’t _like_ dreaming about my Mother’s bruises. I _definitely_ don’t want them dead.” The voice breaking there isn’t feigned, in the least. “And I am _tired_! I am _so_ tired of it all! I know the ring can’t save me indefinitely, and you have creepy human-possessing and tracking skills. I want the dreams to stop. I’d rather get this over with than dream of you making my Dad hit me and my Mom again and again and again. Or worse.”

She is nearly hoarse by the end of it. The listener’s eyes are opaque pools of disappearing light. She can’t stare at them too long.

“So!” she sucks in air. Her eyes burn. “So! I promise to stay back, and not escape with them when I step out of the house with them. Let my friend take them away. I promise to walk back in. That’s a promise. I could walk out right now if I so wished. I _know_ you can’t touch me now. I _know_ I can’t really open the door until I remove the ring. And I promise to do so. This is the best, smoothest, _quickest_ deal you get. What do you say?”

“Why do you want to accompany them out if you don’t want to leave?”

That answer is easy. “I want to make sure they are both themselves before they leave.”

The Beldam crouches near the table. Her mother is still asleep, or unconscious. Coraline doesn’t want to find out. The Beldam sips some coffee.

“I am half-tempted to check whether I can’t really sew the buttons on you already”, she murmurs, leans closer, Coraline braces for the touch, an inch from her skin the Other Mother jerks her hand away, looking stung and stunned and _very_ unhappy. “Well. That decides it, I suppose. My dear, _dear_ girl. My gallant little fool.” Coraline doesn’t get the spittle, but can feel rage. The air around her shimmers like a scalded pot in water.

The Other Mother suddenly rises and picks Coraline’s Mom up. “Let’s get it done with, daughter.” she simpers.

* * *

 

 

The weather outside hasn’t improved in the last half hour. Wybie is perched on the bonnet of his truck, and hurries down the path, but cautiously stops short of a few feet from the shadow of the porch.

“Good thinking!” her Father’s voice flows from behind, and Coraline feels rather than sees the nod that comes with it. For a moment, the world feels as pristine as the holidays when her Father took the two of them exploring down the tracks. Coraline doesn’t want to remember them right now, even as her Father chimes, “Do you have a wheelchair?”

Wybie fetches one from his truck while the two of them stand with her Mom while she slowly seems to come around. Father is too busy whistling obnoxiously cheery tunes. Coraline knows his eyes are dark yet. Wybie unfolds Mrs. Lovat’s emergency wheelchair and pushes it forward. By this time, Mom is leaning heavily against Coraline and—what a strange thing to notice at this hour, but she realises she is now a few millimeters taller than her Mother. The thought is wonderful, somehow, despite it all. She steps out of the porch and is conscious of the air around her changing, becoming cooler, bleaker, but also less... alive? She doesn’t have much time to ponder. She lowers her Mother carefully on the wheelchair with Wybie’s help while her Father whistles away. Once she is settled, and Wybie has a full grasp over the controls, she turns to her Father. “Your turn.”

Her Father gleams at her, and beckons her. Sighing, she steps back in, on the very last step to the porch. He lowers the collar of his turtleneck, and she can suddenly see the tip of what she knows is a long darkened needle from the nape of his neck. She can hear Wybie gasp.

“Are there more?” But she knows the answer to that already. The missing index finger. The Other Mother shakes her head and raises a remonstrative finger. “Now mind you keep your word, darling!”

“I promise,” she croaks.

The Other Mother looks at her a minute and then yanks the needle out. Wybie has tactfully turned the wheelchair the other way, Coraline notices gratefully.

Her Father visibly crumbles holding out the needle. Coraline quickly takes it on one gloved palm and shoves him out of the porch with another.

“Cora... Coraline? Hey, kiddo,” her Dad is squinting and stifling a grunt as he looks up. “When did you come home? I...uh...Why don’t I?” He tries moving, but moans in the effort. Wybie shushes him with a quick, bustling, “Musta been the stomach ‘flu, sir! Mrs. Jones is all but bust. And you passed out, you were that bad! Cor here thought we’d have to get an ambulance! Down that way, sir. If you’ll come to the truck. Here, this door. Heavens know how the Jones’ loo is faring. Mine is shitty.”

“Language, kid!” She can hear her Dad croak. “But. Wait. How?! How did she hurt herself? Was there an attack? Did she pass out?!” Wybie looks over his shoulders at her, while continuing cheerfully, “Passed out stone cold! Must’ve cracked the ceramic. Jones says the pot still works though, so maybe only a chip...Right this way, Sir, a bit further. There, slowly.”

She sees Wybie struggling with the two of them. She can see her father try his level best to help with the wheelchair, but Charlie Jones looks drained. Drained and barely conscious. She looks down at her palm, fisted around the needle. She can feel a strange wriggle, like it doesn’t want to be held, like it doesn’t like to be nearly touching the ring through the leather. She whispers a “Don’t go anywhere, I’ll be back,” before dropping it in the old trinket box left out with assorted junk, and snapping the lid shut. She can feel it rattle.

She rushes down the porch to help her parents. Wybie looks relieved and does a quick hug before rushing back to her Mother. They manage to put them in the car and then, then Coraline starts pulling at their clothes frantically, checking their necks, the tips of their fingers, torso, divesting them out of the thick sweaters to pat them along the thin fabric of t-shirt and aged flannel.

“Coraline, honey, what are you _doing_?” her Father mumbles. Wybie—after a second’s indecision— gives them the thorough physical all over again, just in case. She shoots him a grateful look. Technically, she knows better. She knows all the needles are accounted for. That this is invasive and borderline abusive, perhaps, and once upon a time she’d feel a shred of embarrassment. Here, now, the relief is instantaneous and gratifying.

“Poisonous spider on the grounds. Was terrified of infections.” She must sound really small if Dad manages to wring out a guffaw that makes her want to cry.

“Quite a fright, eh?” He teases. Mother mumbles something.

Coraline wills herself to fake cheer. “Well. That’s that, then! Off you go!”

“Wait.” Her mother all but whispers, “What about you? You fainted...”

“Mom! There’s an ecosystem waiting for me to get cleaned up inside. I will follow the moment the house is fit for human habitation again.”

Her Mom grimaces, scowling. “That bad, huh?” Coraline _loves_ that frown. Coraline lives to _see_ that frown.

“Go on.” She absolutely shan’t cry. “Hit the road before the fog gets any worse. I am really not looking forward to pulling you out of a ditch. Shit pots are bad enough!”

More groans, and then the passenger door is finally shut.

Wybie comes around and gives her a real hug. She clings to him without meaning to.

“Hey, Jonesey, hey. _So_ proud.”

She wants to stay huddled in strange smelling oilskin forever when she feels his hand move against her left side. She buries her face deeper in his raincoat, and angles herself away from the living room windows while he pats her visibly on the back, and quietly finishes his business with her right hand and her pockets. She blows her nose when they come apart, wishing for peppermint tea and never ending slumber.

“Give ’em hell, Jonesey.”

She watches the fog lights blur, then disappear entirely. Storm tonight. She can smell it in the air.

She turns back towards the house.

* * *

 

 

She remembers the wasps and her father, and how he had stood there getting stung while giving her time to run away. He had later claimed that that wasn’t being brave. He saw what he needed to do, and he was giving her enough time to get away before the wasps were done with him. So, that was all right, really. Going back later for his glasses though was brave, because he was terrified to go back to the place but he did any way. She remembers how they counted her father’s stings (thirty-nine) in the bath versus her one, lone welt, and how some welts were worse than the others because the sting wouldn’t come out that easily. She remembers him fidgeting around very uncomfortably for the next few days, while Mom made him soup and took dictations because he couldn’t type.

She hopes she won’t be too worse for the wear when this ends. She really didn’t want to stop.

She rechecks her gloves, her cuff, her high boots and picks up the rattling box. She doesn’t look up to see the silhouette of the house one last time. She will save the theatricality for her and Andie’s first squabble. She closes the front door softly.

She picks up the satchel from where she stowed it away, very carefully. She checks its contents. Everything looks undisturbed. She smiles despite herself. Between herself and the cats, she seems to have managed to distract the Other Mother _and_ her paw well enough. Good.

The buttery yellow light is still there, but has dimmed since. She switches the lights on as she walks down the hallway. She slips into the living room quickly but quietly, and shuts the door behind her. The cats don’t seem to notice. They are too preoccupied with the toy she left them. If the hand had a mouth, she’s sure she’d hear it snarl. She shudders at the thought. She walks towards the mantelpiece and picks one cat off the floor, showing it the rattling box. The hand has a curious little dance going, the cats make a perfect, hungry little audience. She suddenly realises the needles are, in all likelihood, spider bones or arachnid shells. She decides not to dwell on it too much.

The palm springs forward and clings to her arm, hanging off it like a barnacle, the moment she is close enough. She is glad for the layers between the needles’ razor sharp prick and her skin. The hand doesn’t look to prick her though. As far as pointy metal goes, the touch is nearly gentle.

She kneels in front of the door, pulls down a couple of the really fancy duck’s feather cushions. The door hasn’t changed much in all these years. The hand drops the key on her lap. She can feel the cats rubbing against her, sniffing at her satchel, making fishy noises at the trinket box. She smiles and opens the trinket box. She expects the needle to surge out and join its fellow...comrades? But it lies there, limp. She watches it for half a second and then snaps the box shut.

She carefully takes off her gloves and places them in front of her. Showtime.

She takes the ring off and holds it in the palm of her hand. The cats behind her are getting excited by the minute, she can tell. Wybie wasn’t kidding when he said they starved rescued kitties at the pet shelter.

She puts the ring down in front of her. The mewling grows. The cats look alert, excited. She angles herself with a few inches to spare between the door and the cats.

She picks up the key and puts it in the keyhole, two and a half turns, she can feel the click, the lock giving way. She places her hand on the doorknob and turns towards the hand.

“Do you mind? You are poking me and I need to flex this muscle to open the door.” She remembers to smile sweetly.

She can feel the indecision and mounting suspicion of the hand, but, after a beat, it scuttles down the length of her arm down on the floor, a few inches away from the ring. Its discomfort is rather obvious in its contractions. Coraline notices how it is poised to enter the doorway at the slightest crack. Good. She starts pulling at the door. The moment the purple-golden glow from the passage streams onto the dull carpet the hand seizes the key out of the keyhole and lurches forward and falls on the trinket box, flicking it open with a casual finger, to then rush into the door in a mad flurry. Coraline senses the lone needle leaping towards her neck just as she angles away from the door and lets the cats rush inside it, chasing the hand. She doesn’t think any more than _“Pincushion!”_ as she blocks the needle with a cushion. Feather is a tricky thing to disentangle from, especially if the feather is three human generations and twenty duck generations old, for one lone needle sans its comrades. She flings the cushion deep inside the door and moves fast. She can nearly see the silver shimmer of the hand interspersed with the looming dark shapes of the cats. There are only so many more steps left.

She plunges her hands inside the satchel and pulls out the bucket. She crawls halfway across the doorway, lying flat on her belly to push it as deep inside the passage as she can. There is a single terrified moment when she is afraid something will fall on her and pin her to the floor of the passageway. She crawls out, and sets the fuse just as the door on the other side opens. _A bridge is not a bridge unless it connects two things._ She feels the portal, as Wybie would call it, come to life. She leaves a crack of the door open to let the connection last. She can feel the cushion thump around in the passageway. She hears the cats reach the other gateway. She hears, nearly simultaneously, the slow hiss of the fuse detonating. She clutches the door and waits. Losing her life to a crude bomb is panache enough for a lifetime, she tells herself. She feels the first judder of the blast seconds later, her fingers feel the heat. The moment she does, she shuts the door and affixes the ring on it with putty from her right pocket. She keeps her hands and ear pressed against the door for tremors, for the first signs of losing her home, but all is quiet.

An hour later, a fire-extinguisher brandishing Wybie finds her curled around the other cushion, snoring.

Later, she’d wake up to murmur at him, “You were dancing...” Her eyes would stop looking glassy and get all twinkly and sharp in a minute, but that...that would come later. First, she would just open her eyes, look up blearily, and describe how her best friend was dancing with Sheldon Cooper next to a hammock with Miss Forcible in it, singing. Wybie would cover his eyes and holler. She’d smile.

* * *

 

 

“Ordinary things, huh?”, Wybie crouches next to her. It is a wet day, but a rather bleary sun is still up, weakly, and Coraline tries to get whatever last bits of home she can manage before relegating herself to the Reno glare. They are at the garden, salvaging tulips.

“Ordinary things: cushions, metal—“

“A bomb in a bucket”, Wybie intercedes.

“That.” She has to nod, “Also knowledge.”

“What kind, chemistry one oh one?” Wybie smirks.

“Helped to have a potions master,” her nod in his direction is the most mushy they are ever going to get, but he understands, she knows.

“But, really? I have grown up here. Knowledge like that does come in handy.” She smirks back.

“Do you think that was it?”

She is quiet for a beat. “It's fire, y’know? It kinda _felt_ rock solid decisive when we went with it...”

“And since then...?” Wybie is doing his version of tactful, she knows.

“Nothing.” Her voice is as steady as she is sure. “Well, at any rate, there was only ever that one key, and the ring is a permanent fixture on the door. That oughta help in case of...Remind me to _never_ be near you and a soldering iron again!”

“Remind me to _never_ be your criminal accomplice. The shit I had to pull to convince them that they had knocked themselves out because of bad mold, or bad bread. Them and the doctors.”

“Yeah. Really good thinking on that one. Thank god for your special greenhouse. Er. Please don’t choke on something there and die?”

“Destroyed it.   _Evidence_ , Jonesey. The vents reeked beautifully after I put the stuff around, didn’t they?”

“Oooh yes. Beat the stink ball I was gonna go with.”

“Of course it did! We ain’t amateurs, we’re professionals now! We’re in college! I’m your Doctor Nefario for reliable crude bombs and swoony mold.”

She looks up at him, her eyes kind. “It won’t hold, you know. I know we managed to sort of plausibly deny that he was _really_ abusive—”

Wybie mutters “Poh-zee-essed”.

She ignores it, “But... it has been two days since and the moment the antibiotics wore off, they _both_ started packing. Separately. And last night, Dad dropped a glass, and Mom shrieked “Passive aggressive asshole!””

“Holy hell.”

“Yeah. This morning, they sat me down at breakfast to discuss... stuff. Apparently, they were only holding out till Thanksgiving, for my first trip home. We have definitely progressed from marriage counselors to divorce lawyers.”

He puts a very muddy hand around her. She knows she is sad. She feels like a hero who lost. Some things about the Greek tragedy periods are finally falling in place, slumber fest or not. But she doesn’t feel like crying. Anticlimaxes beyond the happy ending suck. She goes on, dry-voiced.

“The mold scare was the last straw. They are giving up the house. Dad’s moving to the city. He signs his lease on Monday. Mom is trying to look for a smaller place. She is scared of vegetation: growing molds, plants-- you name it.”

“Hey! My grandmother is renting out the apartment above the garage. My college... I managed to burn through funding some.” His sheepish prodding at poor tulips that have never hurt him in his life tell her all. Overspending in chem. supplies. Lab bills. Possibly prototypes of biological warfare, given the current state of their kitchen.

“ _Honestly! Wybie, you lame goat!”_

“Hey. Knowledge of household explosives doesn’t come cheap. They are...” He visibly wilts under her glare. “...Accidental? _Destroyed ’em_ , Jonesey!”

By the time they are through, she swears she will make Wybie switch majors.

 _“_ Well. She _said_ she was going to meet Mrs. Lovat. Hey, maybe I’ll get to have your UFO room in the attic.”

“Yeah! Wouldn’t _that_ be cool! We can... wait. _Don’t_ destroy the Death Star!”

“Won’t if you don’t go _special_ gardening!”

“Huh! Wait till you...When is your bus?”

“In a few. I might have to dump whatever is left of my stuff here at your place, okay? Mom’s frantic. She’ll live in a motel, prob’ly.”

“Need a hand? I am not due till tomorrow, anyway.”

“Sure. You half-an-hour-from-home-is-college bastard.” She smiles at him despite the upended, withered tulips affectionately. He gave up on the distance and the sun—unlike her—because of his grandmother, she knows.

They get up. The garden wasn’t much, anyway. And her leaving had put all the flowers at a permanent life risk already. Letting it go won’t be too hard, she hopes. Just another piece of growing up. She will be uneasy hugging her Dad goodbye tonight, she knows, but she will also cling a little.

They abandon the flowers in favour of packing up what’s left of her childhood.

* * *

 

 

The key is lost. The key is stuck. So is the hand holding it. It can’t breathe. It can’t tell who it should feel sorry for, the pointy-eared felines or the Other. The dark is a perfect symphony. It imagines itself snug and dozes off.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hullo there! Thank you for reading!
> 
> The title comes from Katy Perry's Teenage Dream. Extremely twisted of me, I confess.
> 
> The bits of magic mentioned here are mostly very generic stuff, acquired through nearly any cultural osmosis: iron and fire are as foolproof practical (preventive/destructive) magic tools as things get.  
> The bayou is mentioned, but not delved in because yours truly lacks any real knowledge of the same. Gaiman has a curious obsession with Anansi the spider from Afro-Caribbean folktales. While the cunning, sometimes human-impersonating spider is DEFINITELY not the evil Beldam, they could be cut from the same, very very old cloth. Hence the suggestion of voodoo (from the bayou) when it came to the amulet.
> 
> The author is neither British nor American, nor is English her first language. So any anachronisms/cultural discrepancies to be corrected are a deeply welcome find. :)


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